Hello, I'm planning to install FreeBSD 7.0 on a HP 2133 Mini-Note. However, I have tried to find the CPUTYPE to use in make.conf and I cannot find a concrete answer.

The closest ones in make.conf seem to be c3 or c3-m but I'm not sure whether that will work on a C7-M type. The Safe CFLAGS on Gentoo-Wiki says "i686" but I'm not sure whether that is a valid CPUTYPE. Searching this forum turns up "native" as an alternative, but there are reports of it not working properly in FreeBSD 7.0 due to some bug.

Any or all of i686, c3, and c3-2 could be correct for your chip. I can't say which one is correct. If in doubt, use i686 as that will most certainly produce sane, compatible code. One of c3 or c3-2 will likely produce more optimized code, but I have no way to know which would work for you. Study the gcc man page and what it says about it of those options, then compare that data to what you know about the CPU you have.

As someone who knows something about VIA chips, do you happen to know the core model of your chip? I am not as familiar with C7's. One other thing you'll want to remember to do is to enable the Padlock functionality in your kernel by enabling it in your kernel config, or running kldload padlock.

This is because there aren't signifigant enough differences between what VIA sells as C3 and what they sell as C7, architecturally, therefore GCC doesn't have a seperate optimization profile for those sold as C7s. It's marketing terminology more than a genuine difference in technology. That said, there are some very signifigant differences between some early (Cyrix design based) C3 chips, and the latter chips which forked very far from the early Cyrix designs and implemented some really cool stuff like the Padlock RNG and crypto instruction sets.

That said, there are some very signifigant differences between some early (Cyrix design based) C3 chips, and the latter chips which forked very far from the early Cyrix designs and implemented some really cool stuff like the Padlock RNG and crypto instruction sets.

That sounds to me like c3-2 is the best one.
So, cpu I686_CPU in your kernel config file, and CPUTYPE=c3-2 in make.conf

And leave CFLAGS and COPTFLAGS alone!

__________________The only dumb question is a question not asked.
The only dumb answer is an answer not given.

CPUTYPE=i686 ain't supported by make.conf
i686 is something like Pentium 2 (i'f i'mm correct, hold on i'll check), but who know's how compitable via's chip is
just leave it alone (or use i486 or c3 or c3-2)